StarStone
by Elf Eye
Summary: How did Galadriel become the enigmatic Lady of Lothlorien?


**I had a request for a backstory for Galadriel. I do not know if I will do anything more with this story for the time being because I've still got a lot of Legolas material waiting to be written into stories. Still, for what it's worth, here is a vision of how Galadriel might have started down the path toward being the enigmatic Lady of Lothlórien. It plays upon the fact that Galadriel becomes estranged from most members of the family of Fëanor, whose sons are responsible for so much bloodshed amongst Elves.**

Perched upon the river bank, Galadriel paddled her feet in the water and watched as the other elflings continued to collect pebbles worn smooth by the tumbling waters. The tiny elleth had already happened upon several particularly beautiful stones and had no desire to add any more to her little stash. After watching her playmates for a time, she turned her attention to sorting and re-sorting her collection—sometimes by size, sometimes by shape, sometimes by color. Then she chose one particularly beautiful stone, a translucent one that seemed to glow with a fire from within. To Galadriel, it looked like a star that had fallen to earth. Clutching it in her hand, she wandered toward a pool of still water that had been left behind when the river returned to its banks after the recent flood. Still clutching the stone, she knelt beside this pool and peered into it. She saw her own face looking back at her and studied her reflection intently. For as long as she could remember, folk had told her that she looked like her Grand-Naneth Indis, and, as she had so many times before, she anxiously wondered whether this were true.

One might have expected that Galadriel would have been pleased to be told that she resembled her father's mother, but this was not the case. Instead, she found this idea to be an odd and troubling one. For one thing, whenever Galadriel saw her father Finarfin in company with the Lady Indis, the little elleth was unable to see any resemblance between the two. Nor did the Lady Indis resemble her other birthson, Galadriel's uncle Fingolfin. Galadriel wondered how, if the Lady Indis did not resemble the son, she could be said to resemble the granddaughter. For Galadriel _knew_ that she looked like her father. When she sat before her mirror and her father knelt beside her, indulging her by braiding her hair with gentle hands, she saw his reflection beside her own, and she perceived that her face was a smaller, more delicate version of his.

There was a second reason that Galadriel was troubled by the notion that she resembled the Lady Indis. Although the Lady did not look at all like her birthsons, she did resemble her stepson Fëanor. This was not only puzzling but distressing, for Galadriel disliked and distrusted Fëanor. Yet Indis favored Fëanor, and in more than looks. It was Fëanor's opinion that Indis valued and Fëanor's exploits that she praised. Moreover, it was Fëanor's children, his seven sons, whom Indis doted upon. She paid little attention to Galadriel's brothers, Finrod, Angrod, Aegnor, and Orodreth and she paid even less attention to Galadriel herself. On rare occasions Indis did deign to acknowledge the existence of her granddaughter, but as soon as Fëanor's sons entered the room, Galadriel's presence would be forgotten.

Yet folk did say that Galadriel was like unto Indis. As Galadriel knelt beside the pool, she was suddenly desperate to know in what manner she resembled her father's mother. Forgetting her surroundings, no longer hearing the shouts of her playmates, Galadriel stared at her reflection, clutching the star-stone so tightly that it grew warm within her hand. Her nose? It was her father's. Her cheekbones? No. Her chin? The shape of her jaw? No, she decided. Her face was patterned after an oval; her grandmother's face had a more squarish cast to it. What then?

Gradually Galadriel began to focus upon her eyes. As if transfixed, she stared unblinking into their depths. And so it was that she found her grandmother's eyes looking back at her. Gazing into these eyes was like staring into a pool of infinite depth. No matter how deeply she looked into the irises, she was drawn onward, into an endless abyss. But it was not a void into which she peered. "There is a world within these eyes," Galadriel found herself murmuring, at first in surprise and wonder but then in anguish and fear. "I can see everything! Everything!" she cried. Hideous as well as beautiful images passed before her. Her hand now felt as if it were on fire, and she tried to open her fist and cast away the stone but found that she could not. Unable to breathe, her own eyes dilated, she pitched forward into the pool of water.

Her brother Finrod was playing nearby, and he turned at the sound of the splash. "Angrod! Aegnor! Orodreth!" he shouted as he ran toward the spot where Galadriel lay face down in the pool. "There is something wrong with our sister!" Reaching the little elleth, he lifted her head from the water. His three brothers joined him, and together the four of them dragged her out of the pool and laid her down upon the earth, where she lay gasping for breath, her eyes open but sightless. In her hand she still clutching the star-stone. Frantically her brothers chafed her wrists and brow as other elflings ran for help. Their mother Ëarwen was nearby, gathering flax with the ellyth of her household, and she came swiftly. Distraught, she stooped and lifted her daughter into her arms and began to run with her toward the Hall of Finwë. As she did so, over and over again she uttered only one word, in a voice filled with sorrow and fear.

"Indis," she wept. "Indis."

Galadriel awoke a day later in her room in the Hall. By her side sat her mother, and at the foot of the bed stood her father Finarfin. In his hand he held the star-stone. Examining the stone with a look of fear upon his face, he turned it over and over again in his hand. Galadriel stirred slightly, and Finarfin looked up. "My daughter!" he cried. He hastily thrust the stone out of sight into the pouch that he wore on his belt. Then he came to stand by the side of Ëarwen. "How do you feel, my daughter?" he said, assuming a mask of calmness.

Galadriel tried to speak but could not. Her mouth was too dry. Quickly her father raised her head from the pillow, and her mother held a goblet of water to her lips. Swallowing was painful, but after a little while she was able to speak. "I feel faint," she whispered.

"Of course you are faint, my daughter," Ëarwen said soothingly. "You have slept through several meals. You must be very hungry."

Finarfin uncapped a tiny vial of miruvor. "Let us give her a drop of this."

After sipping a little miruvor, Galadriel felt somewhat better, and she managed to swallow a few spoonfuls of broth that her mother fed her by hand, as if the elleth were an infant once more.

After Galadriel had supped, she sighed with contentment. The horror of the previous day had begun to fade in her mind, and she suddenly remembered the pretty stone that she had been clutching.

"I found a pretty pebble yesterday," she said cheerfully.

"Did you, my daughter?" replied Finarfin. He smiled, but his cheerfulness, unlike hers, was forced.

"Yes, Ada. It was so pretty that it looked like a gem. Did no one see it when they fetched me from the river?"

Finarfin was spared the need to answer when the door opened and Galadriel's grandmother strode into the room. "The sons of Fëanor tell me that your daughter has been taken by a fit," Indis said peremptorily. "I would learn the nature of this illness."

"I do not know," Finarfin said hesitantly. "Galadriel was playing by the river when suddenly she fell forward into a pool of water."

"Yes, yes, I know _what_ happened," Indis said impatiently. "But what caused her to behave so? That is the question that must be answered."

"I do not know," Finarfin repeated. As he spoke, he slipped his hand into his pouch and fingered the stone. The gesture did not escape the sharp eyes of Galadriel's grandmother. "What have you there?" she demanded, holding out her hand.

Reluctantly, Finarfin withdrew the star-stone from his pouch and began to hand it to his mother. Suddenly, however, he closed his fist upon it and drew back his hand.

"This stone is Galadriel's."

"Give it to me," Indis ordered.

"I will not," replied Finarfin defiantly. "You have given everything to the sons of Fëanor. Galadriel deserves whatever she can grasp of her own."

Indis laughed unpleasantly.

"She has grasped it, but see what has befallen her as a result. Such a chit of a child has no business meddling with an object of power—for such it is, I deem."

"She will not always be a chit of a child," retorted Finarfin, who was growing bolder by the minute. "The day will come when she shall control the power of this stone."

Indis sneered. "Control it? Or be controlled by it? More often than not such an object will in the end possess its would-be owner."

"I suppose," Finarfin said sarcastically, "that you are going to tell me that you wish to take the stone in order to protect Galadriel from its ill-effects.

"I will not say that I am thinking of her welfare," Indis replied coldly. "Regardless of _my_ motives, however, should not you, her father, wish to keep Galadriel far away from an object that may come to trouble her, waking and sleeping?"

"Whatever the power of this stone," said Finarfin, "it has come to Galadriel. There are other forces at work in this world, Indis, besides the will of evil that motivates _you_. Galadriel was _meant_ to find the stone."

Indis scoffed. "Meant to find the stone? _Meant_ to find the stone! The brat stumbled upon it through sheer happenstance. Blundering about she chanced to lay her hand upon it. And this you think is the will of the Valar?"

Finarfin remained unmoved. "I have not heard that the Valar give no heed to the children of Arda. Or do you think that events occur for no reason?"

Indis hesitated, searching about for a new argument. When she could find none, she was reduced to snarling a prophecy. "Let her keep the stone, then! It will bring her knowledge, but also uncertainty and pain. The day may come when she wishes that her parents had surrendered this stone to one whose skills were more in keeping with its powers."

With that, she turned and stalked from the room. When she had gone, Finarfin turned to his spouse and child, who were pale and trembling. "Do not be troubled," he reassured them.

"But the prophecy!" cried Ëarwen.

"Those words were uttered by Indis. Whatever her desires, she is not numbered amongst the Vala. Indis may be wrong."

"But if she is not?"

"I will not deny that the prophecy may be true, for the Valar may have used Indis as the conduit for their words. If that is so, and Galadriel must suffer through her possession of this stone, then we must accept the will of Eru. No one—not you, not I, not Galadriel—may avoid the destiny allotted to her."

"Galadriel must keep the stone," Ëarwen said sadly.

"Galadriel must keep the stone," agreed Finarfin. He opened his hand and studied the gem. "For the time being," he mused, "we shall have a chain affixed to it so that she can wear about her neck. When Galadriel is bigger, we must ask one of the silversmiths to set it in a ring." He held the gem up, and such was its power that it seemed to illuminate the room, which had been cast into shadow by the approach of dusk. "It is a star-stone," he murmured to himself, unknowingly adopting the name Galadriel had given it. "May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out," he finished. Then he shook himself out of his reverie, little realizing that is was he who for the moment had been uttering the words of the Valar. He smiled reassuringly at his daughter.

"Galadriel, you will have a pretty necklace, and someday you will have lovely ring. Are you not happy?"

Galadriel smiled back at her father, but her smile was an uncertain one. 'It may be', Finarfin thought sadly, 'that the words of Indis have already begun to come true'.


End file.
